~ Musings on faith, music, movies and books.

In His Perfect Time

The LORD seems to be in the mood of teaching me a lot of things in the space of these last few days. After the lesson about obedience yesterday, today He was teaching me about trusting in His time.

Isaiah 55:9 says that “God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. Just like the heavens are higher than the earth”. Have you ever seen a rat inside a maze trying to find his way out? Reading this passage evokes that kind of imagery for me: where we are the rat, only able to see what is in front of us, our vision blocked by the walls; while God is like an eagle hovering above the maze, having a full perpespective on the situation from His bird’s eye view position.

Well, this exact situation happened to me right the day after the 24-hour worship ended. In the final session of the 24-hour worship, we were led by an awesome worship leader from Pennsylvania, USA by the name of Stephanie Peters. It was an awesome experience for all of us that really gave us a glimpse of Heaven. A feast, a party with all the citizens involved, just singing, dancing and basking with joy, enjoying the presence of the LORD. When it was announced at the end of the service that Stephanie would be leading all services the next day (Sunday), naturally I wanted to come and experience more of that awesomeness of God’s presence. Since I was tired after all that 24-hour experience, I decided that I would come to the last service, the third one at 4.30pm in the afternoon, so I could take a rest first.

Imagine my total disappointment when I arrived at the 4.30pm service to find out that Stephanie wasn’t there. I asked people and they told me that Stephanie was only there during the first two services. I wondered if I heard it wrong the night before, but they told me, yes, I heard it right the first time, but apparently there was a sudden change of plans. I was getting a bit angry, especially since my girlfriend was really looking forward to talking with Stephanie again and getting her to sign her Bible.

All of a sudden, my worship pastor came out and greeted me, and I told him about my issues. He then told me that I do not need to be disappointed, as Stephanie would still be there for 2 more days: the weekly prayer meeting on Tuesday, and a worship team training on Wednesday. I literally leapt with joy upon hearing this news, it meant God has replaced my sadness with joy once more. But as this moment happened, the Spirit told me to hold back, calm down, and think about what has happened during the entire day…

I then looked back to 10 a.m. on that day. My car broke down with an empty battery, and my dad was working to fix it. Since both of my brothers were out and I was the only one at home, I helped my dad to fix and replace it until I was finished. The entire process took quite a long time: from trying to recharge the battery by refilling the liquid, taking it off from the engine bay after it didn’t work, bringing it to a battery shop to be replaced, waiting for the battery shop to get the new battery from its warehouse (since they didn’t have it in stock), bringing it back home, then installing it on the car. By the time I was finished, it was already about 12:30 p.m, so after finishing everything, I ate my lunch and then rested for a while before picking up my girlfriend and going to church.

Now, imagine what would happened if I KNEW beforehand that Stephanie would be coming only to the first two services. Most likely, I would have left my dad alone at home and go to church by taxi, not caring about his ordeals with the broken car. And if I did that, of course my dad would have gotten angry with me and the day would have ended badly. Even if I had decided to stay and help my dad, I think I would not have done it out of my own initiative. Instead I would have done it with with a lot of burden in my heart, I would have felt forced to do it (since there were no one else to help), and I think I would have grumbled a lot. And that would have made my dad angry too, so it’s a lose-lose situation there. By NOT letting me know about everything beforehand, God has actually turned that seemingly impossible situation into a win-win situation for me.

How’s that a win-win situation? Well, I must admit that I don’t go to the prayer meeting regularly, so if I had actually met Stephanie that day, I would have felt satisfied with what I got, and I think would not have asked around about Stephanie’s further schedules in my church. That means, I would have missed her time in the prayer meeting and the worship team training (which were awesome, by the way).

When I finished thinking about it, I just felt so awesome about how God has arranged everything for me, and everything is truly perfect in His timing. One of my all-time favourite quotes was this one from Steve Jobs, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” – This is true, but I always liked to add something to the end of the quote: GOD is the only one who can connect ALL the dots, backwards and forward. He is the only one who knows everything: past, present and future. Trust in Him, and you will be safe. Trust in Him, and you shall not fear for tomorrow.

I know that it’s not really easy to completely trust in GOD, but my hope is that as you LEARN to place your trust in Him and obey Him when He leads you, you will lead a fulfilled life and you will see that everything in your life will be perfect in His timing.

My Conviction

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes — the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”